themightysrc

Herr Mahlo, A tremendous piece of research, and one that helps to bring Lee's account alive as only a picture can. Very well done indeed, and I look forward to reading more of this sort of post - I'm very impressed. Cheers, Si

"As for "unc" - he got banned for repeated bad behaviour in public. He MAY still be a reader here - in that case: greetings, Unc!" Atrociously rude as he could be - as well he probably knows - I would ask the CA mods to please let the man back onto the boards. Even though I disagreed with his manner and his politics, it seems to me that banning someone who is, after all, a WWI flight simmer is not the best way to go. I'm sure, were he allowed back, that we could all agree to disagree where necessary, and should a dodgy post appear, then just moderate the worst bits. We are, when it comes down to it, meant to be adults, aren't we?

"Indeed, here is a famous photo of Jasta 11 at Rocourt" Ah, the one they took of Led Zeppelin before some dastardly Huns came along and removed their faces and replaced them with some German blokes nobody had heard of? Know it well...

"I'm not too thrilled with P3 as it is, I just don't see sense in shelling out another 10 bucks if it's not going to make significant improvements." Hi red, I enjoyed the bog standard (if you can it that) P3 on my old rig - which was pretty weedy, as people here would tell you - and bought HitR as much as a gesture of good faith in OBD as anything else, to be honest. What I didn't expect was to have the game transformed on my PC. I gained FPS, the ground looked better, the sky looked better (when I wasn't being jolted around by the turbulence), the aircraft reacted better and the AI seemed much, much better to me. Vanilla P3 is Ok - I think that's probably not contentious - however with HitR it's a very different and more worthwhile beast indeed. And I speak as someone who's hardly bothered with the additional aircraft that came with it. If you buy it, I don't think that you'll regret it. Cheers, Si

"got a century or 2 before oil will run low. Ihope by then we will have made some progress on other formas of energy." Really. I do hope that you can back that up with documentation, because the best estimates that I've seen indicate that we're actually in or have just passed through peak oil. I would prefer some factual references. I tend to get a wee bit cynical when I read opinion that according to the fossil fuel industry, there's plenty of oil left, and increases in CO2 in the atmosphere are purely a myth, despite core sampling and a fair bit of other evidence to the contrary. It very much reminds me of the tobacco industry's brave and principled fight against medical researchers who had the gall to point out that smoking cigarettes or pipes had a firm and irrefutable link to dying of lung, mouth, throat or other cancers. The jury is not actually out. It's been back and given a majority opinion, and the opinion is that we do harm to the atmosphere of this planet, and degrade it. I suggest that people who think otherwise take it up with the scientific bodies concerned. And, for any Brits reading this, to make this slightly lighter reading - aren't Man Utd s**te? Couldn't believe them getting turned over by Ajax. Fergie tried the 'young team' excuse, disregarding the fact that the Ajax team are actually younger than his own. A woeful performance. As a City fan, I enjoyed their discomfiture, but I find it hard to believe that they can persist with Jones and the useless Evans in their team. What midfield? Cheers, Si

Hi Olham, We've been through this before. The reason I do that is because my video card - even now - is a bit crap and in no way equates to the sort of visibility that I and my opponents would have had in WWI in real life. Thus, I consider it quite acceptable to compensate by using what are, frankly, pretty minimalist aids to help balance out the fact that AI has unlimited vision, unlimited knowledge and unlimited prescience, apparently. The way you fly may be OK for you, but unless your video card is as good as human eyesight, then what you've actually doing is playing the game at a disadvantage, particularly seeing as you don't get full briefings about enemy squadrons, absolutely accurate landscape and the chance to chat to other pilots from other squadrons. I'm sure you get the point. TAC is a crude substitute, but until you have utter, utter immersion, it's a fair substitute in my book. Cheers, Si

Christ, this has to be the healthiest bunch of gamers on t'interweb! Taps to everyone for your extraordinary dedication. Me? I get that 20 mile marathon runner burn if I run upstairs too fast. Brilliant news from the weight watchers, and I'm delighted that you're all detecting the benefits from the weight reduction. It only leaves one question... If you've lost all this weight, and, as we know, mass is simply energy, then where in the world has it reappeared, given that we know that you can't actually destroy matter, simply convert it. Where have you buggers hidden it!

Olham - make sure you have the spares contract for the Douai area. You'll retire a millionaire...

Well, I really don't know what you're moaning about RP. Get yourself in a BE2c and get up there in the clouds. You'll soon stop complaining about flight models and damage models and low level manouvring and all that nonsense and, instead, you will finally get to learn the one lesson that every WWI pilot had to learn: how on earth do you survive flying an aircraft that the gods themselves looked down at and wept, so rubbish it was. Be a good chap. Do a BE2c career, as per the above recommendation, and, at the end of it, if you still have issues with OFF, then I'll be happy to pass on my experiences as a Pup, Camel and Albatros pilot - but not until then! This is meant, I assure you, in the best possible way, and I would recommend the above to everyone else reading this who thinks they've got a handle on OFF. Cheers, Si

Hmmm. If you're invoking Ricthofen's mob, then why not: OFF: The circus ring OFF: The burning ring OFF: Ring sting ??

I hate attacking two seaters. It's horrible work and invariably - like Olham - my engine gets nailed. Even attacking in a Brisfit is bad news, because your main fire power is behind you. I'd much, much rather take on DVIIs and Dr1s than bloody two seaters. Did I ever tell you about the time I downed a Roland in a BE2c? And didn't get my engine shot to f***? S'true, but only the once, mind...

" In my opinion here isn't the place to gather support for your ideals." I'll bear that in mind next time I read on CA somebody advocating nuking Iran and being cheered on for it.

Or, alternatively, shrug your shoulders, put CloD back on the shelf and plan revenge on the developers.

Very good advice Olham, foranyone who finds OFF too easy! I fly - for the record - with TAC, but with Von Baurs' 'white spot' and very faint label mod, which I feel is a good middle way given that I can't know every jasta and there's nobody around to update me. In flight, you can't tell who's a baddy until you F4 them or they fall on you. And that's it. I've given up on all other instruments, although I use the rubbish map (to ponder my escape route) which is probably even less accurate than the ones issued in WWI. Oh, and I do warp (X) because I don't have all day/night to play silly games!

Hi Olham, I take it this is from a wargaming do somewhere?

Just so as you know, UKW, if you hear off the English Democrats setting up in the NE, give them a wide berth. It's the same BNP/EDL/NF thugs as usual, they've taken over said English Democrats. Avoid.

Perhaps they (Youtube owners) should hack the tosser's account and implant a video of bodies being bulldozed at Belsen to the same Nazi tune. I hate nationalist bulls**t at the best of times, and that was nationalist bulls**t from the worst of times.

It's an interesting way to get someone interested in the game. Aside from the odd offer to my other half (she'd love to learn to fly) to take up a Pup and have a toddle round, the only other time I've tried to show OFF to anyone is a fellow board/card gamer who's been know to dabble in games like Rome Total War and suchlike. He had a fly in an SE5a trying to take out the odd Pfalz scout, but I suspect that he wasn't too impressed. A combination of his interests lying elsewhere and my (then) crappy rig. I haven't bother since with anyone else, mainly because I'm the only flight simmer I know - I'm genuinely not aware of anyone else in the Greater Manchester area, let alone Bury, where I live. So, it remains a solitary joy, particularly since the MP side bit the dust a while ago. I'd love to show it to fellow gamers, but even in the UK's 2nd city, it looks like we're a vanishingly rare breed.

The DH4 I approve of - it should be part of OFF, to be honest. The rest looks like somebody's hobby horse. What are they thinking?

"It would appear so....however, the HD Graphics 2000 (which I'm pretty sure is what you have) has no dedicated memory but shares the fast Level 3 Cache with the CPU cores and also part of the main memory." Hi Parky, I think that you're saying that I could probably do with getting a decent graphics card, yes? Otherwise I'm sharing the 4 gig that the rest of W7 is using? Cheers, Si

Now you lot have got me wondering... You'll probably know that I bought a Lenovo H420 with an i3 (apparently a P6) processor and 4gb of ram in it in the New Year sales. The one point I was uncertain of was the graphics. For £330, you can't expect miracles, and the main point of the new box was to act as a business workhorse for the next few years, as well as allowing me a bit of gaming fun to boot. Having read this thread, I decided to fire up PC Wizard and check out what the graphics actually are - I knew it wasn't a dedicated card. Here's the output: Manufacturer : Intel Model : Intel® HD Graphics Family Bus Type : PCI Texture Memory : 1760 MB Processor : Intel® HD Graphics Family Converter : Internal Refresh Rate (min/max) : 59/120 Hz GPU Information : Number of GPU : 1 Memory Type : 1 GB 0 Pixel Shader Version : 3.0 I think that gives me a gig of onboard graphics memory, yes? Any opinions on how far up or down the graphics league this device is? Cheers, Si

UKW,, ".I'm SO looking forward to this, I'm surprised my head doesnt drop off!!!" You've not started channeling the Prince Regent from Blackadder have you? I can just hear Hugh Laurie's voice...

I'd love to see lesser known/obscure aircraft in the next iteration of OFF, but the fact remains that there are loads of planes - as Winder hinted - that should be in there. French two seaters, more German two seaters, the Whitworth FK8 (if anyone's listening...), and many many more. I was surprised when HitR boasted the Fokker monoplane; possibly one of the least significant scouts of the war. I know why it's in there, I just think it is a waste of effort (historically) even if it shifted units (in real life). Anyway, I'll shut up before I annoy too many people... Cheers, Si

"Was very good in itself (not comparing to the novel) both the hope and despair came through. It came across as a high quality well crafted piece of work with some beautiful camera work and scenes, with seemingly realistic trench views. The very expansive view at one point showing the flattened NML landscape with the main character in the middle for example. Overall very good, I haven't read the novel so can't comment on that part." I read the book several years ago, and I will hold my hands up to start with. The book is not the work of art that people say it is. It's absolutely f***ing dreadful. I've read many novels - not just WWI, of which there are very few - but there aren't many that made me feel that I'd been cheated, so convoluted was the plot. Birdsong is worse than Ben Elton's 'The First Casualty', and that is, I assure you, a damning verdict. In an attempt, apparently, to ensure that the TV adaption wouldn't be sullied with anything resembling plot, the scriptwriters removed a good 50% (trust me - I read it so you won't have to) of the plot and feeble rationale. If you saw it and wondered why he suddenly embraced a German in the middle of no mans' land, that's the reason. It's sort of vaguely in there somewhere, in the book (except explicit), but that translates in the truncated, dumbed down version to just hugging a Hun for no particular reason, and without explanation or background. Trust me. The book is an absolute pile of s**te and the BBC adaptation - I regret to say - was even worse. If I want to see people staring wistfully into each other's eyes for no particular reason, I'll bob off down the local FE college's canteen. I'm sorry I can't be positive about it, but it was very, very bad indeed if you like stuff like plot, timeline, characterisation and all that mularkey. Save yourself much wasted time, and if you wish to see British (BBC) drama at its very best, then watch the recent version they did of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", possibly one of the finest pieces of adaptation of a novel that I have seen in the last 20 years. Just forget about "Birdsong": it was a bag of s**t.

"Sorry, but I'm not. In my first bolded line I said, that war and fighting is deeply rooted in male genes. In the second bolded line I say, that vulgarisation and bestialisation are results of our raising and education." I think I see what you're trying to say, but my point was that if something is deeply rooted genetically (and you didn't actually pony up any evidence to support it - although I guess several thousand years of warfare might be seen as quite compelling!), then your second point becomes almost tautological, if you like: if that's how we are, then that's how we will raise young people. I don't support that POV, mainly because there are many examples of human societies - google the quakers, for example - who are not products of an instinctive outcome via genetics, and indeed human history is littered with many, many examples of people, communities and whole societies that contradict your point. If I've misread or misunderstood you, then I apologise: my point is simply that we as a race are a whole lot better than to be simply killers, and there is nothing to say that violence and warfare is inevitable, unless we are dim enough to allow ourselves to be taken down this path.